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How can one turn the sinking, horrified feeling when one loses a love into a function? Or describe in terms of a function, the blissful wonder of being in the a

How can one turn the sinking, horrified feeling when one loses a love into a function? Or describe in terms of a function, the blissful wonder of being in the arms of a lover? An issue I have is the that there seem to be profound limitations to language, explored in the philosophy of language, that fail to capture much, if not most, of the world. Functionalist models of mind and behaviour seem extremely limited, as our subjective ontology doesn't seem to reduce to functional outputs. You also say that an AI would rapidly consume the whole of human knowledge. For me, the totality of human knowledge would become a mass of contradictory statements, with little to choose between them on a linguistic level. There are, for me, profound philosophical issues with creating a mind that is "conscious" in the sense that an AGI is implied to be, as a purely symbolic logical construction. Language is the only tool we have for programming a mind, and yet the mind cannot be completely described in language, nor can language seem to properly encompass whatever the fundamental ontology of reality involves. I don't feel there will be a "free lunch" where we advance computer science to the point where we get an explosion of the kind AI1 designs a better AI2, which designs an even better AI3, and so on. This seems to have a perpetual motion feeling to it, rather than one of evolution. It isn't to say AGI is impossible, but I believe that like everything else in computer science it will have to be solved pragmatically, and realising this could be an extremely long way off.

Sweetness 5y ago
> How can one turn the sinking, horrified feeling when one loses a love into a function?" The same way the brain does. Those complex feelings can eventually be resolved into dumb neurophysics. Love, fear, anxiety etc. al are just electrical impulses tickling chemicals. Is there anything in our brains that we could never approximate with technology?
- mkaic 5y ago
  This is my view as well. It's a little unnerving and it definitely starts to overlap with the whole "free will" debate, but yeah, I don't see any reason why we can't fundamentally replicate the behaviors exhibited by the brain. It doesn't violate any laws of physics.
- gizajob 5y ago
  We've had technology like poetry, art, and music for thousands of years, and yet no symbolic description of the feeling can contain the feeling of what it's uniquely like for me. Even though we could try and model the brain, say, functionalist models fail to capture qualia as it doesn't reduce to behaviour. To replicate the brain fully in a computer would need a full description of its chemistry and physics, along with that of the greater universe, which we don't have, and to describe it coherently to simulate it is a problem of the order of magnitude more difficult than ones we're going to be able to code for the foreseeable future.
  - Sweetness 5y ago
    I agree that it'll be while before we fully understand the brain but I don't have any doubts that we'll get there eventually. I am curious though, why would we need to understand the greater universe perfectly as well?
    - gizajob 5y ago
      Where does the brain get its inputs from? These computational models are based on an ontology where the brain is an isolated box separate from the universe, which is only one of the many philosophical outlooks argued over. For example, most schools of Buddhist philosophy would regard this separation as entirely the wrong picture of the world.
- colinmhayes 5y ago
  Philosophers have debated this since at least ancient greece. It's hardly a solved question, and about a third do believe that there is something in our brain that we could never approximate with technology.
  - lgas 5y ago
    Have any of that third put up any testable theories about that something? Or are there leading theories as to what the something might be?
    - colinmhayes 5y ago
      If a philosopher had a testable theory I don't think they'd be a philosopher anymore.
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  This assumes that there is no free will however :)
mr_toad 5y ago
> How can one turn the sinking, horrified feeling when one loses a love into a function? … or into electrical activity in the brain.
- gizajob 5y ago
  Can you point to a paper or website that contains this function, described in full? Yes, electromagnetism no doubt, but while we can postulate a function, we still don't have the function, and will somehow have to write it down for it to be a function.
  - mr_toad 5y ago
    > somehow have to write it down for it to be a function. That’s not how AI is trained. You don’t need to know or even understand the resulting model to train it. The training algorithms have little to do with the resulting model, and are certainly not themselves intelligent.
- tuatoru 5y ago
  Why assume that the activity is purely electrical?
  - Koshkin 5y ago
    It's not purely electrical. It's also chemical, especially if you look at how synapses work. (But then again, chemical processes are driven by electric charges anyway.)
edflsafoiewq 5y ago
I don't think AGI is seeking to create a machine that can love, and I think it would be even less capable of it than "mere" logical intelligence. Thank God too, the moral questions involved are truly terrifying (humanity as a Great Demiurge, birthing monstrosities).
mpalmer 5y ago
> How can one turn the sinking, horrified feeling when one loses a love into a function? Or describe in terms of a function, the blissful wonder of being in the arms of a lover? Evocative questions but I have to challenge the premise. First, that things like emotions and qualia are design ends in themselves for a successful AGI rather than potential emergent properties of same. For that matter, are they really necessary to the brief? > An issue I have is the that there seem to be profound limitations to language, explored in the philosophy of language, that fail to capture much, if not most, of the world. And how much of the world does a human mind capture? The piece already accounts for this claim. The theory is that all language has to do is describe a sophisticated enough network. After that it's black boxes all the way down. > Language is the only tool we have for programming a mind And a darn good one. Formal languages can express a great deal when you find the right abstractions.

Sweetness 5y ago

> How can one turn the sinking, horrified feeling when one loses a love into a function?" The same way the brain does. Those complex feelings can eventually be resolved into dumb neurophysics. Love, fear, anxiety etc. al are just electrical impulses tickling chemicals. Is there anything in our brains that we could never approximate with technology?

mkaic 5y ago
This is my view as well. It's a little unnerving and it definitely starts to overlap with the whole "free will" debate, but yeah, I don't see any reason why we can't fundamentally replicate the behaviors exhibited by the brain. It doesn't violate any laws of physics.
gizajob 5y ago
We've had technology like poetry, art, and music for thousands of years, and yet no symbolic description of the feeling can contain the feeling of what it's uniquely like for me. Even though we could try and model the brain, say, functionalist models fail to capture qualia as it doesn't reduce to behaviour. To replicate the brain fully in a computer would need a full description of its chemistry and physics, along with that of the greater universe, which we don't have, and to describe it coherently to simulate it is a problem of the order of magnitude more difficult than ones we're going to be able to code for the foreseeable future.
- Sweetness 5y ago
  I agree that it'll be while before we fully understand the brain but I don't have any doubts that we'll get there eventually. I am curious though, why would we need to understand the greater universe perfectly as well?
  - gizajob 5y ago
    Where does the brain get its inputs from? These computational models are based on an ontology where the brain is an isolated box separate from the universe, which is only one of the many philosophical outlooks argued over. For example, most schools of Buddhist philosophy would regard this separation as entirely the wrong picture of the world.
colinmhayes 5y ago
Philosophers have debated this since at least ancient greece. It's hardly a solved question, and about a third do believe that there is something in our brain that we could never approximate with technology.
- lgas 5y ago
  Have any of that third put up any testable theories about that something? Or are there leading theories as to what the something might be?
  - colinmhayes 5y ago
    If a philosopher had a testable theory I don't think they'd be a philosopher anymore.
mensetmanusman 5y ago
This assumes that there is no free will however :)

mr_toad 5y ago

> How can one turn the sinking, horrified feeling when one loses a love into a function? … or into electrical activity in the brain.

gizajob 5y ago
Can you point to a paper or website that contains this function, described in full? Yes, electromagnetism no doubt, but while we can postulate a function, we still don't have the function, and will somehow have to write it down for it to be a function.
- mr_toad 5y ago
  > somehow have to write it down for it to be a function. That’s not how AI is trained. You don’t need to know or even understand the resulting model to train it. The training algorithms have little to do with the resulting model, and are certainly not themselves intelligent.
tuatoru 5y ago
Why assume that the activity is purely electrical?
- Koshkin 5y ago
  It's not purely electrical. It's also chemical, especially if you look at how synapses work. (But then again, chemical processes are driven by electric charges anyway.)

edflsafoiewq 5y ago

I don't think AGI is seeking to create a machine that can love, and I think it would be even less capable of it than "mere" logical intelligence. Thank God too, the moral questions involved are truly terrifying (humanity as a Great Demiurge, birthing monstrosities).

mpalmer 5y ago

> How can one turn the sinking, horrified feeling when one loses a love into a function? Or describe in terms of a function, the blissful wonder of being in the arms of a lover? Evocative questions but I have to challenge the premise. First, that things like emotions and qualia are design ends in themselves for a successful AGI rather than potential emergent properties of same. For that matter, are they really necessary to the brief? > An issue I have is the that there seem to be profound limitations to language, explored in the philosophy of language, that fail to capture much, if not most, of the world. And how much of the world does a human mind capture? The piece already accounts for this claim. The theory is that all language has to do is describe a sophisticated enough network. After that it's black boxes all the way down. > Language is the only tool we have for programming a mind And a darn good one. Formal languages can express a great deal when you find the right abstractions.